Life After Trees

We knew this was coming for about 2 years. But it still seemed like a shock. On Thursday all of our trees were cut down on our North-South street for about 6 blocks. This is part of the city's forestry plan for managing the Emerald Ash Borer infestation. Our East-West street is also all ash trees and it is unclear on how long we will still have those...maybe another 2 years or so. The city has said that cutting stage of their management plan will end in 2015. Being on a corner lot, we are getting hit a little harder than our neighbors. We will lose 4 mature trees total and already lost 3. I understand that this is a part of a long term plan to make the urban forest more healthy and sustainable, but it just sucks that we are affected more heavily than most.

 Our little house surrounded with trees.

A few days before the cutting I was sure to take lots of pictures of Leif with the trees. I also wanted to capture the view of our tree lines street with the beautiful Gothic archways created by the trees' canopies.

 The view looking South down our street.

 Our canopy.

 View of the back of our house.

Pondering the view.

Another South view of our street.

On Thursday I returned home from work to a very empty street that was surprisingly echo-y. It looked like a tornado had ripped through our neighborhood. We are definitely a family of treehuggers and I can't deny that this wasn't an emotional experience. In Leif's perfect impression of a 2-year-old, he said, "No, no, MY trees!" And talked about the "guys" and the trees falling and said "sad" and "crying" when recapping what he watched from the living room window.

 View looking South down our barren street.

View looking North.

 Our corner.

Our backyard, with no trees.

We love this neighborhood and are committed to staying even though we are beginning to look like what Jeff described as a post WWII baby boom suburb. I have faith that our neighborhood will be beautiful again, it just will take some time, patience and a little creativity and imagination on our part. So rather than wallowing in sadness and looking at real estate listings of houses in oak filled neighborhoods, we have talked a lot about what we can do to make things better.

Step 1:
We contacted the forestry department and have requested information about when and what trees will be replanted. They responded saying the trees will be replanted in over a month in mid-April to mid-May. The variety of trees have already been decided but if we have serious requests, they try to honor them. (We want some disease resistant elms or oaks, so that in 60 years or so, our neighborhood will have those nice archways again.)

Step 2:
Plant on our own property. We have planted one tree in the backyard and two in the front yard over the last few years. I think a catalpa would be nice in the corner of the backyard. We also want to plant a short ornamental tree under our power lines and fast growing river birch in the other corner of our backyard.

Step 3:
Plant decorative gardens on our boulevard. Since the new trees will be little saplings, there needs to be something more on the boulevard. There are some really pretty gardens around our neighborhood that we have been looking at for inspiration. Jeff also wants to organize a neighborhood plant swap and planting to beautify the hard hit areas.

Step 4:
Add some green height to the boulevard by adding an arbor to our walkway with some vines growing. Also, plant some vines to grown on our street light and signs. shhhhh, we aren't sure if we are allowed to do this. But now is time that is desperate for some guerrilla gardening.

Step 5:
Build a Little Free Library. This is something I've been wanting to do for awhile, but I think the morale in our neighborhood could be improved with a simple project like this. We also saved a few pieces from our old trees that could be used as the roof of the library...a positive memorial.

And finally....We have noticed a few things that are positive since the loss of the trees. So, as my grandad would say, "There's hope in my soul."
-Leif enjoys playing on the stumps and proudly says, "I did it!" when he gets to the top.

-The tree stumps were also fun spots to do some chalk art.

 

-The stars are much more visible than before. I noticed this cool astronomical sight last night.
-Our lot is much sunnier than before (obviously), which will be good for heating in the winter and for the replacement plants.
-The view is worse from our house looking out. It isn't so bad looking toward our house from across the street. The backdrop of our house is still very tree filled.
-We still have this view on our East-West street!

Update: We are getting new trees this week!!  I'll update photos soon. Happy times!